PHILADELPHIA -- They had faceoff professor Claude Giroux ceding that responsibility to faceoff student Scott Hartnell (though due to the locker-room agreement never to discuss aches and pains, apparently that had nothing to do with the left hand Giroux was dragging behind him.)

They had Jaromir Jagr leaving early with a hip injury, and that was after Jakub Voracek had been planted with a face-first belt courtesy of Detroit defenseman Niklas Kronwall. And how did that hit sit with the Flyers?

"I wanted to puke," Danny Briere said.

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Instead, the surviving Flyers on the bench sucked some wind and stuck together through a Red Wings storm, holding on behind yet another superb effort by goalie Ilya Bryzgalov for a 3-2 victory that had all the fat-lipped hits and close-lipped words of the common playoff game.

"Speaking for myself, that's OK," said Max Talbot, whose second-period goal would go down as a game-winner. "Maybe (the referees) let a couple of things go ... but tonight it's a playoff atmosphere a little bit."

One play that most partial observers inside the packed Wells Fargo Center were incensed to see unpenalized was Kronwall's hit on Voracek, which knocked the fast forward out of the game and resulted in a split lip.

Oh, and left Briere a little queasy.

"You see someone laying on the ice like that ... I don't know if the head was targeted or it was a clean check, but it's still not fun when you see someone on the ice, laying there shaking," Briere said. "It was a bad feeling in everyone's stomach."

Fortunately for the Flyers (37-21-7, 81 points), they found a remedy in a lead over the Red Wings.

It was Giroux, who would swear on a stack of books as high as an upper-body injury that his left hand (or wrist) was A-OK, who would put them there.

First, however, it was Bryzgalov allowing a goal on an almost perfect shot by Red Wings sharpshooter Henrik Zetterberg, whose goal exactly four minutes into the game was the fourth time in five games that Bryzgalov was beaten on the opposition's first shot.

Once again, he didn't let it get him down. Rather than explain how, he talked about how his team helped the lead stand up.

"Guys were blocking shots when the puck was in front of the net, and with two players down with injuries, guys stepped up and played more minutes," Bryzgalov said. "They played very well."

Zetterberg's goal would quickly be negated by Voracek, and he received plenty of help from Detroit goalie Joey MacDonald in doing so.

That MacDonald was even on the ice was a tribute to how hurtful injuries were to the Red Wings, too.

Six Detroit regulars were MIA, including defensive leader Nicklas Lidstrom, top playmaker Pavel Datsyuk, power forward Todd Bertuzzi and starting goalie Jimmy Howard. The Red Wings were also without defensemen Jakub Kindl and Jonathan Ericsson, which might have been why the Flyers recovered from Zetterberg's goal and spent the rest of the period buzzing MacDonald's net.

The pressure might have gotten to him, because for some reason he left the puck sitting behind his net, allowing Voracek to swoop in, pick it up and fire toward the crease, where it hit MacDonald's leg and rebounded into the net at 13:50 for 1-1.

Then Giroux took advantage of a puck that bounced over the stick of Kronwall. Giroux picked it up and streaked in on a breakaway, nicely deking MacDonald and scoring at 18:11 for a 2-1 Flyers lead.

Giroux pulled a similar play in the second on a penalty kill, streaking down the middle and firing a shot that MacDonald saved, but Talbot was on hand to plant the rebound for a 3-1 lead.

All this and a hurting hand that forced him into taking only two faceoffs? Or not?

"What do you mean?" Giroux said.

Never mind. But know that while Giroux was 0-for-2 in the faceoff circle, Hartnell was 7-for-9. Good support for the no-injury claims. Maybe that's a byproduct of what is starting to look like a turnaround, as the Flyers won their third straight for the first time since December. They also extended a home winning streak against Detroit to seven games, dating to Jan. 1997.

"Guys are very excited." Giroux said. "If we can get on a roll here before the playoffs ... it should be fun."

First, though, they needed 37 saves from Bryzgalov to get by the Wings, who brought it to 3-2 in the third on a goal by Johan Franzen, then swarmed the Flyers the rest of the way to no avail.

"The last few games it's been playoff hockey," Briere said. "Everybody has been paying attention to the little details. Everybody's been paying the price, everybody's blocking shots and winning battles. Earlier in the season we had trouble closing games out with the lead ... it's good see us winning those types of games against good teams."